GURS said however that one could not say that this was an indication of a crisis in the real estate market.

The average price of existing flats dropped by nearly 4% in 2012 and continues to slide slowly. The average price of existing flats sold in 2012 reached the lowest level since GURS started monitoring real estate prices in 2007.

A more or less strong trend of declining real estate prices was recorded in cities throughout the country.

The port town of Koper saw the biggest drop in prices of existing flats: the average price of flats sold in the last quarter of 2012 was 15% lower than in the same period of the previous year.

The average price of existing flats sold in the final quarter of 2012 in Ljubljana was down 6% year-on-year. For the first time since the launch of the price monitoring, the price per square metre in Ljubljana dropped below EUR 2,300.

A similar drop of some 6% in existing flats prices was also recorded in Kranj (NW). In Celje (E) prices dropped by less than 3% and in Maribor (NE) by slightly more than 2%.

The number of sold flats in Slovenia dropped in the second half of 2012. However, the figures available at the moment are not enough to say that this has developed into a general trend, GURS said.

In Ljubljana, the number of sold flats in the third quarter of 2012 dropped by 9% over the year before. However, the final quarter of the year saw a 4% increase in the number of sold flats.

In Celje, the number of sold flats dropped in the third quarter by 29% year-on-year and in the final quarter of 2012, the number of flats sold was up by 2%.